Greek Bible

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When someone says they have a Greek Bible, purchased at a Christian Bookstore, what does that mean. Is this a Greek translation of the Vulgate? Is this a Byzantine Bible? What would the value of this Bible be as a reference for study?

Sorry for so many questions 🙂
 
It probably means the standard text we all use (even Catholics), with apparatus, published by the American Bible Society. It shows all the variant readings based on manuscript evidence. It is indispensable (along with some knowledge of Greek, of course).

Greek Orthodox “people in the pew” read a modern Greek translation – so don’t confuse it with the above. For Greeks today, New Testament, or Hellenistic, Greek (which they call “ancient” Greek) is at least as remote as Middle English is to us.

I am in possession of a Greek Old Testament from about 1890 which is, of all things, a modern Greek translation of the Vulgate! Go figure!
 
There are many Greek texts, but I have not seen much difference in them. It is possible that the text is a modern one, but most Greek texts I have seen are simply copies of the original NT greek.
(These do have lots of minor variations, but I don’t think they generally affect anyones doctrine protestant or Catholic.)

There are many Greek texts online that can be compared for accuracy. Perhaps reading the preface of the book in question will give you a clue as to what the source of that particular book is.

The Greek is often useful as an aid in study the NT because the grammar is different and in some cases the Greek grammar clears up an ambiguity in the english translation. e.g. Often it is possible to determine what is NOT meant by the text.

Learning Greek takes quite a bit of study, and without knowing Greek the usefulness of a text is lpretty limited. e.g. you could compare words to see if they are translated into synonyms, etc.
 
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janman55:
When someone says they have a Greek Bible, purchased at a Christian Bookstore, what does that mean. Is this a Greek translation of the Vulgate? Is this a Byzantine Bible? What would the value of this Bible be as a reference for study?

Sorry for so many questions 🙂
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janman55,

It is very valuable for study because you can get a more intricate understanding of the bible. For example Peters name means rock in Greek, which was the original language of the NT writings. Another reason is because in Greek there are several different tenses, like in latin, that tell you quite a bit about the passage. For example, the word, for “full of grace”, that the angel adresses Mary with is a passive participle in the vocative case and in the perfect tense. The vocative case means it is an adress like a name. You would use the vocative when directly addressing someone like I did in the begining of this post. Perfect means that it was a past action that has results that proceed into the present. Like in this sentence, “I have filled the glass.” The glass is still full.

Do you see what I mean?
 
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janman55:
When someone says they have a Greek Bible, purchased at a Christian Bookstore, what does that mean. Is this a Greek translation of the Vulgate? Is this a Byzantine Bible? What would the value of this Bible be as a reference for study?

Sorry for so many questions 🙂
Click to expand...
Your last question has been discussed in length in:

Should we study Greek?

One of the links reference was the Greek Old and New Testament On-Line;

The New Testament and the Septuagint: A Resource for Ancient Greek Scholars

PF
 
Follow up to all the wonderful info above. But I’m even more ignorant than you may think…

I thought the birth of the Bible went like this

Hebrew and Greek and some Aramaic manuscipts–> Latin Vulgate by St Jerome, with the manuscirpts shortly thereafter extant. Would a Greek Bible be a translation from Latin? English? If so, what is the value of study in Greek, to critique St Jerome?

I understand the original Septugint would be Greek, correct? but where would a Greek Bible come from if the first Bible was the Latin Vulgate?
 
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janman55:
Follow up to all the wonderful info above. But I’m even more ignorant than you may think…

I thought the birth of the Bible went like this

Hebrew and Greek and some Aramaic manuscipts–> Latin Vulgate by St Jerome, with the manuscirpts shortly thereafter extant. Would a Greek Bible be a translation from Latin? English? If so, what is the value of study in Greek, to critique St Jerome?

I understand the original Septugint would be Greek, correct? but where would a Greek Bible come from if the first Bible was the Latin Vulgate?
Click to expand...
janman

The Latin Vulgate of St Jerome was translated from the Greek texts of the time. This would include both the Old and New Testament. With Christianity spreading westward from the Greek speaking to the Latin speaking Europe, there was a need to a standard complete translation of Scripture so the populace could understand (not read, understood) when it was spoken by the clergy.

A reason to go back to the original Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic texts is to get a better understanding of the original meanings that were lost through translation from one language to another. In addition, older and more accurate texts have been found than the ones St. Jerome used when he did the Vulgate.

A very good example of this is a passage from Exodus (I cannot remember where it was), but here is a one letter difference between halo and horns in ancient Hebrew. According to the story I heard, a scribe make a slight mistake when copying the text from Exodus and changed the word from halo to horns when describing the appearance of Moses. That is why some paintings of Moses has him with horns.

It also is valuable when writing commentaries if you can expand the meanings of words by using the original language and the context that it was used. The example is the Greek word
kechcharitōmenē from which we get the expression “full of grace” in Luke 1:28. I will not go into it here, but the word has a lot of meaning beyond “full of grace” or “highly favored one” of other translations.

I hope this helps.

PF
 
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janman55:
Follow up to all the wonderful info above. But I’m even more ignorant than you may think…

I thought the birth of the Bible went like this

Hebrew and Greek and some Aramaic manuscipts–> Latin Vulgate by St Jerome, with the manuscirpts shortly thereafter extant. Would a Greek Bible be a translation from Latin? English? If so, what is the value of study in Greek, to critique St Jerome?

I understand the original Septugint would be Greek, correct? but where would a Greek Bible come from if the first Bible was the Latin Vulgate?
Click to expand...
It’s possible your friend means he bought a Greek New Testament complete with critical apparatus for study. If it’s the New Testament, then what he has is an “original language” text, not a translation. If it’s the Old Testament, then it’s the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew OT. You may want to clarify if his Green text is NT only or both OT and NT.

In any case, the NT Greek text should be considered “original”.
 
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